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No Vote on Janet Yellen Until Audit the Fed Gets a Vote

As pretty much everyone expected, President Obama’s nomination for Federal Reserve chairman is a big-government Keynesian. Many left-wing pundits are applauding the nomination of Janet Yellen, the current Vice Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. She has held many prominent jobs within the Federal Reserve and politics.

Her positions on monetary policy reveal that she is just more of the same. She supports recklessly printing more money to “boost” the economy. But as we’ve seen with the seemingly endless quantitative easing programs, printing excessive amounts of money has devalued the dollar and hurt the poor the most.

According to the New Yorker, “More recently, at the Fed, she has strongly supported Bernanke’s unorthodox (but very necessary) efforts to revive the economy and bring down the unemployment rate, and to expand the Fed’s thinking beyond its traditional fixation with inflation.”

Nominee Janet Yellen also opposes a full audit of the Fed because it would "affect its independence." Yeah, that's the point. A 2011 limited audit revealed the Fed secretly gave $16 trillion to banks, corporations, and foreign governments. Given the Fed’s reckless bailouts to special interests, does anyone think that the Fed deserves the independence to do whatever it wants?

However, I’m hesitant to call Janet Yellen the wrong choice for Federal Reserve chair because that implies that there is a “right” choice. There is no one person that should have the ability to dramatically impact the economy at a drop of the hat. The problem is the Federal Reserve, not Yellen—or whoever is in charge at the Fed.

A full audit of the Fed would be more significant than the Federal Reserve chairman. However, the oft-introduced Federal Reserve Transparency Act has never been voted on in the Senate. This bill would eliminate the current audit restrictions placed on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and require a full and thorough audit of the Federal Reserve.

Last year, the Audit the Fed bill passed the House, 327-98! Despite the bill passing with overwhelmingly bipartisan support, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid refused to allow a vote on it. This is odd because Reid used to be an outspoken supporter of Federal Reserve transparency.

Don’t believe me? In 1995, Harry Reid said on the floor, "I think it would be interesting to know about the Federal Reserve. I think we should audit the Federal Reserve. It's taxpayers’ money that is being used there."

Oh, and here’s another interesting Reid quote, "There is no entity in the world that controls our lives more than the Federal Reserve System"

1995 Harry Reid is absolutely right.

The Federal Reserve has virtually unchecked power to control the economy and the value of our money. This is especially troubling since the Federal Reserve has maintained a veil of secrecy. Since its inception in 1913, the Federal Reserve has never been fully audited. The central bank has been operating for 100 years with no real transparency.

The time for an audit is now. FreedomWorks supports Sen. Rand Paul’s efforts to get a vote to audit the Federal Reserve as a condition for considering the nomination of Janet Yellen for Federal Reserve chair.

No vote on Janet Yellen until the Audit the Fed bill finally gets a vote.

Click here to see Senate Republicans who have not cosponsored S. 209, the Audit the Fed bill.

We have been living in the Bernanke Era since 2006, a period at the Federal Reserve where Quantitative Easing, or QE, became the tool of choice for propping up Wall Street. Ben Bernanke is retiring soon, and after a rather messy nomination process by the White House that saw Larry Summers surface then sink in a matter of a couple weeks, we now have learned that Janet Yellen is the President's choice to follow Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

"There is no entity in the world that controls our lives more than the Federal Reserve System" - Harry Reid, 1995. While Harry Reid admits the unchecked power of the Federal Reserve, he has failed to act to provide oversight of the central bank. Despite the concentrated power of the Federal Reserve, it has little accountability from Congress or any branch of government.

Ben Bernanke is arguable the most well equipped Fed chairman America has ever seen, and I mean that sincerely! His academic accomplishments are top notch; and his career as a public official is equally impressive. He has been a ranking member of some of the most influential and prestigious economics advisory councils and research groups in the nation. By all accounts, Ben is the best conceivable man for the job of Chief Central Banker!

Senator Rand Paul has reintroduced legislation to audit the Federal Reserve in the Senate. The bill, S. 209, currently has 24 cosponsors. This legislation is important because the people deserve to know who the Federal Reserve is bailing out behind closed doors. Here are the Republicans that have not cosponsored the audit the Fed bill yet. Please call them or tweet at them and politely ask them to cosponsor S. 209!

The debt ceiling debate reached a new level of absurdity when some pundits began tossing around the idea of a $1 trillion coin. Instead of advocating for spending cuts to avoid hitting the $16.4 trillion debt limit, proponents of the one trillion dollar coin believe that the Federal Reserve just needs to create more money. They want the U.S.

Throughout the various rounds of quantitative easing enacted by the Federal Reserve in response to a persistently sluggish economy, advocates of loose monetary policy have kept a gleeful eye on the Consumer Price Index, pointing to the lack of measured inflation as evidence for the soundness of their ideas and the groundless paranoia of their detractors.

"I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom. And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude." - Thomas Jefferson, written in a letter to Samuel Kercheval on July 12th, 1816.

In the two presidential debates that focused heavily on the economy, there was not a single mention of the Federal Reserve. This is clearly worrisome since the U.S. central bank has a huge impact on the economy. With the Federal Reserve largely to blame for the recent financial meltdown and the rapidly declining value of the U.S. dollar, this is an important economic issue that the presidential candidates should be addressing.

This past Saturday, September 22, marked the fourth annual End the Fed day. At Federal Reserve branches across the country, liberty activists showed up to call attention to the corruption and immorality of the Federal Reserve System.

We wrote up a “QE3 Fact Sheet” after Ben Bernanke’s announcement on monetary policy Thursday. Left-wing apologists for the central bank came out in full swing, advocating for the money injection as a beacon of hope.